You’re Important

You and your Lexus / Accura / Mercedes / Inifinity / Hummer slide over into the emergency lane and drive a half-mile to get to the same light we’re all waiting on, thereby creating a logjam when the light turns green. OK – we get it — you’re important.

You dash through the grocery store in your tennis skirt with your little cellphone earpiece dangling. You’re talking really loud to someone about “networking” “touching base” “ASAP” “e-mail me” and “let’s do lunch.” The rest of the poor unwashed masses are just there to pick up some cereal or some green beans or some other means of sustenance for our meager existence. You want to make sure that we all realize we’re very much in your way while you’re there picking up some last minute items for the next great dinner party. Ok, we get it — you’re important.

Out running Saturday morning errands, you’re wearing a T-shirt from some 5K something that you ran last week with one of the other parents from the kids’ soccer league. Your hat is from a golf tournament you attended and wearing it somehow puts you in the same stratosphere as the professionals who played that tournament. OK, we get it – you’re important.

Speaking of soccer leagues, you have a big soccer ball magnet on your car. You and your land yacht ran me off the road because you just had to pick up the dry cleaning before Missy and Cody and Dustin got through with soccer/band/karate. I’m just a poor lunch pail kind of a guy trudging through my boring life. You have the right of way because, after all, you’re, important.

Speaking of your land yacht, you have a sticker with the name of your church and/or your university in the rear window. I’m sure that God and the University of Georgia are both very proud to be affiliated with the king and queen of suburbia. Every time you pull out in front of us and go 16 miles an hour while you dig for your phone it runs through our mind that road rage is sometimes justified. But we swallow it because you’re such an important person.

I’m not as full of hate and vitriol as it sounds. But the older I get the more I realize that, in the grand scheme of things, we’re like fleas stuck on the same dog. We’re all subject to the whims of an infinite number of things that are all out of our control. We’ll all be here until we’re brushed out of the grand scheme of things. So how did you arrive at the conclusion that the comfort, convenience and livelihood of you and those you live with have priority above and beyond mine?

Atlanta native who spends far too much energy on Georgia Tech sports and old music. Also religious about Atlanta Braves baseball and baseball history. Now live in the 'burbs with my wife and a yellow labrador retriever who rules our world. Follow my blog @ http://southerndiversions.blogspot.com/